Is Glenn Beck's TV show hurting his radio show?

[Holland Cooke]

I'm asking about his TECHNIQUE, not his content.
This is about HOW-he-says-what-he's-saying, not WHAT-he's-saying.

Two aspects:

1. Think-back to how-his-radio-show-sounded before his FoxNews TV show.
TO YOUR EAR: Did the radio show sound more "together" then?
Does it now sound more like he's-mailing-it-in?
Did it used to seem better-prepped/scripted/easier-to-follow?
Does it now "interrupt itself" and bog-down into silly in-studio cross-talk?
Before Beck had to "share RAM with" a TV show, did his radio show sound more-focused?

2. Is his on-camera manner off-putting?
Do you find that effeminate mocking tone...creepy?

Again, I'm not referring to his message, but to the-way-he-delivers-it, in both media.

Your thoughts?

HC
www.HollandCooke.com

 

[Signal_Faded]

I think you are trying to lead the discussion in the way you feel about Glenn (you did not do a good job of hiding your dislike for the guy as an on-air product). Like him or not he has a personality that polarizes in a dramatic way (much like Rush) and that is what draws, for better or worse, his audience.

The only memories I have of GB are in my 'minds ear' and my opinion of him then is much as it is now. He is dramatic (overly at times...most of the time actually), entertaining and a bit out of control. I find him to be the same exact way now except for MORE dramatic now. While I can get how some may be put off by his on camera behavior he has truly found his shtick and if there is anyone who can respect that it should be you Holland.

"Once it degenerates into ‘blah, blah, blah,’ listeners are off like a prom dress." - HC in today's Inside Radio

 

[Holland Cooke]

I'll take that as a "no."

I think you are trying to lead the discussion in the way you feel about Glenn (you did not do a good job of hiding your dislike for the guy as an on-air product). Like him or not he has a personality that polarizes in a dramatic way (much like Rush) and that is what draws, for better or worse, his audience.

Half-correct on the first count, correct on the second.
But that's not my point.

MY preferences don't matter.
Arbitron won't let me vote.
As-a-practical-matter, I need to be agnostic.
GLENN BECK MAKES ME MONEY.
He's programming content on stations I work for...some-of-which I put him on.

Thus my questions, regarding his technique.

Not that we-here are, by any means, "a listener sample."
We're ALL insiders here.
NONE of us count to Arbitron.
But, as regards TECHNIQUE, this sure would be the place for shoptalk.

"Once it degenerates into ‘blah, blah, blah,’ listeners are off like a prom dress." - HC in today's Inside Radio

Thank you.
And if you can't-get-enough-of-that-HC-stuff, here's more:
http://getonthenet.com/radio-info.pdf

Fearing-that-quoting-other-trade-press-here might be gauche, I wouldn't...had you not opened-the-door.
Since you have, I'll share an excerpt from a reply to AllAccess.com's "10 Questions" to WZTK witty morning host Brad Krantz:

"Many of the most prominent names in our business are failures as human beings, in their marriages, in their drug and alcohol habits, in their bad peer relationships. That these odious people have any standing to lecture others on how to behave or how the country should be run is absurd. That Glenn Beck is the flavor of the year should send shivers down all our spines; instead it will probably spawn a thousand imitators who will set up radio shop in their own little Glennbeckistans."

NO calling Beck a hypocrite though, puh-LEEZ.
He seems to relish telling us he's a recovering whatever.

Does the TV show help...or hurt...the radio show?

 

[MikefromDelaware]

I've not listened to Beck since the election, but like Hannity (who I don't often listen to either) who also has a TV show on Fox, what seems wrong to me is both seem to spend time promoting the TV show on the radio show, even though its on a different network (Premiere vs Fox), but I've not noticed either promoting the radio show while on their TV show. My guess is, their real money is made on TV not the radio, even though they probably are pulling in nice radio checks that any of us would be proud to get. It just seems to me that they use the radio show as a promotional tool to build their TV audience. Whereas Rush (who no longer does a TV show, he too used to promote the TV show on the radio) is better focused, in my opinion, because he's not doing TV.

 

[dustintv]

Actually I personally think that Beck is amongst the few who can successfully sustain both a TV and radio show doing both quite successfully. This is quite the contrast to others in the past, where Rush is good on the radio, bad on TV, O'Reilly good on TV, bad on radio, and Hannity who is both bad on TV and on radio.

 

[del_griffith]

I'm a tad older than probably most on this board. So my tastes are a bit different. Not music that could take a life old, but moving too rapidly in that direction.

When Beck first hit my market after 9/11, I thought he was fresh air. After a few years, it got old and tedious. He seemed so much less in tough with reality. When the market crashed in 08, I personally thought he became unhinged. It only got worse after his move to Fox. I compare him to Chuck Harder in the 90's. Only more polished and with better facilities to stage his performance that reach more people. If Beck stays away from the ultra-fringe that Harder didn't in the 90's and keeps his show more aligned to middle America rather than poor white America as did Harder, he may remain "legitimate" in the eyes of the larger audience world. But the message they are putting out is virtually the same. Execution is the difference.

Politically I was a conservative that talk radio moved to the middle and maybe even slightly left.

I don't get to see the inside numbers of the ebb and flow of Beck or any other hosts show. So my conclusions are simply based on what I hear friends saying and what I see on the conservative forums.

Dorothy Thompson says, "The most destructive element in the human mind is fear. Fear creates aggressiveness". What Beck has managed to do probably better than anyone recently is to tap into the dark side of peoples emotions and fears. Even among those who aren't politically active but have a belief (maybe not practiced, but a belief) in traditional values are having patent or latent fears massaged by Beck. And Beck is allowing them to feel empowered because he has legitimized being open about those fears and prejudices.

But to the question of whether his tv show is hurting his radio show. For now, I don't think so. At least to the average listener. But if the trained ears are beginning to question it, then my guess is longer term it could be a problem. But for now he building his "tribe" to bulletproof himself. That alone will help with any audience erosion at least in the mid-term.

 

[newhampshiredude]

I'm a tad older than probably most on this board. So my tastes are a bit different. Not music that could take a life old, but moving too rapidly in that direction.

When Beck first hit my market after 9/11, I thought he was fresh air. After a few years, it got old and tedious. He seemed so much less in tough with reality. When the market crashed in 08, I personally thought he became unhinged. It only got worse after his move to Fox. I compare him to Chuck Harder in the 90's. Only more polished and with better facilities to stage his performance that reach more people. If Beck stays away from the ultra-fringe that Harder didn't in the 90's and keeps his show more aligned to middle America rather than poor white America as did Harder, he may remain "legitimate" in the eyes of the larger audience world. But the message they are putting out is virtually the same. Execution is the difference.

Politically I was a conservative that talk radio moved to the middle and maybe even slightly left.

I don't get to see the inside numbers of the ebb and flow of Beck or any other hosts show. So my conclusions are simply based on what I hear friends saying and what I see on the conservative forums.

Dorothy Thompson says, "The most destructive element in the human mind is fear. Fear creates aggressiveness". What Beck has managed to do probably better than anyone recently is to tap into the dark side of peoples emotions and fears. Even among those who aren't politically active but have a belief (maybe not practiced, but a belief) in traditional values are having patent or latent fears massaged by Beck. And Beck is allowing them to feel empowered because he has legitimized being open about those fears and prejudices.

But to the question of whether his tv show is hurting his radio show. For now, I don't think so. At least to the average listener. But if the trained ears are beginning to question it, then my guess is longer term it could be a problem. But for now he building his "tribe" to bulletproof himself. That alone will help with any audience erosion at least in the mid-term.

I am a young talk radio listener and I do not like Glenn Beck's radio show at all. I have been listening to Laura Ingraham for years and she is a great alternative to Glenn Beck. When Beck said that a McCain presidency would have been worse than an Obama presidency, he lost me. Ingraham is a true conservative, not a good self-promoting freak like Glenn Beck. She is on in many cities (probably in your's) like in Boston on WRKO before Rush.

 

[MikefromDelaware]

I am a moderate Independent registered voter, who also listens to NPR news/info/talk programming and I've listened to Laura Ingraham on Wilmington's WDEL in the evenings when they are not airing Phillies baseball (summer), Eagles football, or Westwood One Football (fall/winter), etc. I like her show far better than Beck's, Hannity's, or Limbaugh's. Far less hype and ego on her show. If Laura's show was on WDEL during the day, I'd be a pretty regular listener, depending on what NPR was discussing during that same hour. Whichever one was more interesting would be the one I'd choose.

 

[Holland Cooke]

RE mailing-it-in

Anyone listening NOW?

 

[jwtalker]

I don't necessarily think it's the TV show that has changed Beck's radio show. I think Beck's way of thinking has changed. He's a man on a mission now.

Go back and listen to Beck's old WFLA shows, it's almost like night and day. You pretty much never hear the very funny produced bits that his staff used to crank out and the whole tone of the show is different.

I still am a Beck fan, I never watch the TV show because he's way better on the radio.

 

[livingfruitvirus]

I've not listened to Beck since the election, but like Hannity (who I don't often listen to either) who also has a TV show on Fox, what seems wrong to me is both seem to spend time promoting the TV show on the radio show, even though its on a different network (Premiere vs Fox), but I've not noticed either promoting the radio show while on their TV show. My guess is, their real money is made on TV not the radio, even though they probably are pulling in nice radio checks that any of us would be proud to get. It just seems to me that they use the radio show as a promotional tool to build their TV audience. Whereas Rush (who no longer does a TV show, he too used to promote the TV show on the radio) is better focused, in my opinion, because he's not doing TV.

I've noticed that too, and it's not just Beck or Hannity. Dave Ramsey promotes his TV show on Fox Business on the radio, but not the other way around. I have yet to watch Ed Schultz on MSNBC so I don't know if he does the same. Maybe the TV networks forbid it, unless they fork over money.

 

[Holland Cooke]

Hey, I'm just a radio guy...but...

Fox News needs to bring in a consultant to light Glenn Beck's set.
He walks-around it, in-and-out-of shadows.

And what's with that odd-looking dummy microphone he pretends to be talking-into?
He's wearing a wireless lav.
Cliche.

But hey, I'm just a radio guy.

 

[del_griffith]

Maybe the shadowy stuff enhances the brooding mood he's trying to put out.

I haven't watched his tv show all that much, but saw a video from his website the other day where he did a gold explanation. He did not look well.

 

[Holland Cooke]

RE "He did not look well."

And HOW awkward was his appearance on Jay Leno last night?
Pretty darn, eh?

There's at least one buy-gold sponsor per break in his TV show, sometimes TWO, since he lost over a dozen "real" advertisers when he called the president "racist."

 

[Bob1370]

Seems to me there's a bigger issue here...and that has nothing to do with a host's issue positions or even his personality (however controversial he may be, and how appealing or unappealing he may be to any individual listener). It's damned difficult to carry both a daily radio show and a regular TV show at the same time, without having one, the other, or both projects creatively suffer from the host's divided attention.

It's always seemed to me that when a radio host does a "second front" gig on TV in any other context than a video simulcast of his radio show, the radio show is usually the project that suffers by becoming more unfocused. It happened to Larry King and Tom Snyder in the 80s and early 90s. It happened to Rush Limbaugh for a while in the mid-90s. It happened to Bill O'Reilly, and it's happening now to Hannity and Beck. (It may or may not be happening to Rachel Maddow as well, her TV show is doing well but her radio show isn't carried in my market so I can't judge if it has suffered in quality.)

In each case it seems to go down the same road...the TV show gets most of the host's intellectual attention and most of the prep effort, while the radio show becomes more formulaic and themes keep getting repeated until they wear out. Eventually the host in each case gave up either the radio or the TV show...and in each case, the program the host stayed with improved once it got all that host's attention. Larry King and Tom Snyder got sharper once they were doing only TV. O'Reilly may not be my personal cup of tea, but he is definitely doing better and more focused TV since he stopped doing radio. Limbaugh's radio show got flabby while he was doing a syndicated TV show but regained some of its crispness and focus once he became radio-only again (although I still think he was at his best in his first four or five years as a national act, when he was challenging the establishment rather than identifying with and defending it.)

Hannity and Beck are trying to continue to carry both shows forward and in each case, the radio show becomes more formulaic and repetitive, while the TV show gets most of the attention and most of the host's creative energy. If either of them stop trying to do both radio and TV at the same time, their work in whatever medium they stay with will get better.

I don't include Howard Stern in this discussion because he has, for the most part, simply put his radio show on TV as a simulcast or as a compilation of radio show excerpts simultaneously recorded to video.

It's hard to think of anyone, other than Arthur Godfrey, who was able to juggle distinct radio and TV projects simultaneously and do full creative justice to both over an extended period of time. Shows you just how hard it is to do (and what a uniquely talented broadcaster Godfrey was in his day).

 

[Holland Cooke]

GREAT analysis!

APPLAUSE for Bob1370's post.
The Arthur Godfrey reference goes wayyyyy back...but sure is relevant.

It's hard to get-hotter-than-Beck-is-right-now.
That'll give his radio show some slack.

But having-sat-waist-deep-in PPM data a-two-day-conference-on-audience-measurement (now THAT'S nerdy), the Arbitron Fly-In week-before-last, I can tellya fer sure that, no-matter-WHO-you-are, every...single...syllable matters. Meter data proves it. So Beck's making a mistake letting his radio show degenerate into silly, self-amused in-studio crosstalk and plugs-for-the-TV-show.

But that's only his second-biggest problem.
He's REALLY gotta watch-out for guys-with-butterfly-nets...

 

[MikefromDelaware]

That's funny, as I was reading Bob1370's post I kept thinking, what about Arthur Godfrey? Bob's right, Godfrey was one who did manage to do justice to both his CBS radio show and the CBS TV show. I believe he had the last variety/guest show on radio other than NPR's Prairie Home Companion that, I believe, started after Arthur Godfrey's radio show left the CBS airwaves (his radio show lasted many more years than his TV show, but both were popular).

I can remember listening to one of Arthur Godfrey's later radio shows on Philly's CBS affiliate, 1210 WCAU (circa 1970) and one time the sound man was a bit slow in turning up the reverb or echo for the vocal mic. The first couple of notes sang had a flatter sound then when the reverb or echo kicked in and how much better that voice then sounded. It was live network radio and stuff sometimes happened.

 

[brian65]

I agree with the original poster's observations.

Beck's radio show has changed, and only about 10-20% of it is worth listening to anymore.

If I had to sum it up, I'd say the difference is that on the radio show you have 3 people giggling too much, but on tv, there's only one person giggling/making faces too much.

There is now way anyone could continually consume both on a daily basis.

 

[del_griffith]

I agree with the original poster's observations.

Beck's radio show has changed, and only about 10-20% of it is worth listening to anymore.

If I had to sum it up, I'd say the difference is that on the radio show you have 3 people giggling too much, but on tv, there's only one person giggling/making faces too much.

There is now way anyone could continually consume both on a daily basis.

Not that I disagree with what you wrote, but how does a show that is losing content and presentation value either continue to grow or maintain it's audience?

 

[brian65]

Not that I disagree with what you wrote, but how does a show that is losing content and presentation value either continue to grow or maintain it's audience?

My guess would be:

1. At the local level there's probably nothing that much better to listen to.
2. At the national level, program directors are choosing his show over others.